Auckland Transport still refuse to improve frequencies

 

At the beginning of the year I had blogged on how Auckland Transport Refuse in Improve Rail Frequencies. Today Transport Blog released a post themselves outlining how much faster our trains can really go pre-City Rail Link meaning freed up units to allow some increases to frequencies on the main three lines. Of course we still need Council to order another 20 trains given it takes two years to bring those units on-stream but speeding up the existing units and timetable is a good interim step.

 

Transport Blog have written a full post on the fleeting being able to go faster here: How fast should our trains be.

 

In short below is the comparison of the current timetable and what the timetable can actually be:

 

Western Line savings:

• Timetable reduced to 43:21 minutes giving a saving of 12:39 minutes

Eastern Line:

• Timetable reduced from 37:00 minutes to 31:31 minutes giving a saving of 5:29 minutes. Effectively there is nothing stopping the train running from Manukau City Centre to the City Centre (Britomart) in half an hour flat (implications for Transform Manukau via Panuku Development Auckland)

Southern Line (the line I use):

• Timetable reduced from 54:00 minutes to 40:57 minutes giving a saving (and probably the largest of the lot) of 13:03 minutes. For me to do a trip from Papakura to Britomart and back again taking 40 minutes each way would make more of a pleasant journey than current. It would also mean the City Centre has a stronger attraction given I am not sitting in a train for close to an hour as current

Note: these are all pre-City Rail Link times and savings

 

 

Faster journeys and increased frequencies from those faster journeys. What is stopping this? Auckland Transport – again!